Letting Your Child Struggle and Choosing Love Over Fear, with Dr. Wes Robins

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Dr. Wes Robins sent me a text a few weeks ago, and I stopped what I was doing and read it twice. It was a piece he had written at his kitchen table while his daughters worked on an art project beside him, and it was one of the most honest and beautiful things I have read in all the years I have been doing this work. It started with four words: you are not broken. And it kept going from there.

Wes has been a guest on this show before, and I have always admired how he shows up. No pretense, no pedestal. Just a real human being who has done his own hard work and now walks alongside young people and families who are doing theirs. Since we last spoke, he made the gut-wrenching decision to close the treatment center he poured five and a half years into, and what he learned on the other side of that loss is something I think every parent who has ever watched someone they love struggle needs to hear.

He is back in private practice now, seeing clients out of a cool 60’s ranch house in Alpharetta, GA. He works with young people, with parents, and with families who are trying to figure out how to stay present through things that feel impossible to witness. He’s a Ph.D, but has officially taken on the designation of Soul Nurse, and once he explains it, you’ll understand exactly what that means.

This conversation goes places I did not expect. We talk about the piece Wes wrote for parents, and he reads it aloud, and I am not going to pretend I held it together. We get into the difference between empathy and presence, why watching your child suffer might be asking something of you that has nothing to do with them, and what it actually means to be the flight attendant when your kid is in turbulence.

If you have ever felt like you were failing simply by not being able to fix this, this one is for you.

YOU’LL LEARN:

• The wise words Dr. Wes wrote at his kitchen table that stopped me cold
• How to think about psychedelics and plant medicines when your child is asking (or using them)
• The difference between empathy and presence, and why it matters
• Why your child's struggle may be your greatest spiritual teacher
• What being the flight attendant actually looks like when you are terrified yourself

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Website
• Dr. Wes Robins Youtube Channel
• Dr. Wes LinkedIn Profile
• Email address: drwes@eternalstrength.com
• Psychology Today
• "When The Map Burns" 

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